WEST COAST INTERIOR DESIGN STUDENTS TAKE ON AN ICONIC EAST COAST PROJECT

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013

West Coast Interior Design Students Take on an Iconic East Coast Project

What do New York City and Design Institute of San Diego have in common? Led by architect and design instructor Lily Robinson, fourth-year interior design students at DISD embarked on a 15-week journey to design a visitor center for the newly completed FDR Four Freedoms Park on New York City's Roosevelt Island.

The park was originally designed by the famous architect Louis I. Kahn over 40 years ago, but was never built due to the architect's sudden and tragic death in 1974. Inspired by a Kahn retrospective at Cooper Union a few years ago, architect Gina Pollara decided to revive the plans and, working with Mayor Bloomberg, got the park built to Kahn's exact specifications. The park opened to public on October 29, 2012.

At the north end of the park sits an old ruin, the former Smallpox Hospital designed in the Gothic Revival style by architect James Renwick in 1856. Sources say that Kahn had plans to turn the ruin, which is a designated historic landmark, into a visitor center, but never got a chance to formalize his ideas into a plan.

Enter the DISD students! Eager to design a viable and creative visitor center, the students spent weeks delving into the rich history of the site, the demographics of Roosevelt Island, the type of visitors who were expected to come, and the complexities of arrival on the site by ferry, cable car, subway, bikes and cars, as well as on foot. They studied maps to determine the views and the path of the sun. They interviewed the clients to determine functions and amenities the facility should provide such as exhibition space, information center, theater, library, café, retail space and farmers market. Then they brainstormed possible concepts which drew on this vast array of information.

On December 12, 2012, Gina Pollara (now Executive Director of the park) and her associate, architect John Conaty, who will be leading the design team on the visitor center, flew in from New York to review the students' work. The students presented them with various ideas for logos, signage and branding concepts for the park, as well as detailed space plans, material selections, furniture and fixtures for the 10,000-sf facility.

"Thank you so much for tackling the Smallpox Hospital problem," said Gina. "We both enjoyed critiquing the work. You should be very proud of your students!"

As student Paulina Kayachanian Llanos recalled, "It was a very overwhelming but exciting project to do. Every step was a learning process. I learned how to incorporate Photoshop, 3D CAD modeling, space planning and more."

"At the beginning," Paulina continued, "I did struggle to get a concept but with Lily's help we worked on getting a strong, successful concept. I learned so much and presenting to real clients and architects made it more exciting because you get to experience a little bit about the real world and get feedback from people who are already out in the field."

Fellow student Stephanie Silberstein Plotnick concurred: "I felt that the IDV course really helped prepare me for working on real-life projects. I was able to recognize the time demands that these sorts of projects demand, and how imperative it is that we designers employ efficient time management in order to complete all the tasks at hand in a thorough manner."

Addressing DISD faculty and staff, Stephanie added, "I really wanted to thank you for your guidance and mentoring that you provided for all of us this semester. I wanted to let you know that I feel proud of the work I accomplished in this course, in large part due to your advice and for the fact that I always felt comfortable coming to you with questions. Thank you for your patience and friendly approach to all issues at hand."

Student McCall Gulli summed it up, "There is nothing more fulfilling than taking a real-life project and creating a unique design for it...I think it opened up our eyes to many problems we had to solve, and questions we needed to have answered that went along with working on a real-life project."

I think McCall spoke for all of us when she said, "I'm excited to see what the (New York) team puts together for the visitor center when it's in the process of being built!"